Today is the worst I’ve felt since bouncing back. This heat seems to be getting worse by the day. I know part of it is lack of access to a pool. I’ve done all I can to get to the pool at least every other day. Then today I got tomorrow’s swim time taken away….. Then I worked myself to heat exhaustion mowing the lawn.
It seems like if I was really suicidal I could just push myself into heat stroke….. Huh, I just realized that I have made an attempt. I have made a number of them using heat stroke. Back then I wouldn’t drink water for a few days and bicycle everywhere. Unfortunately it just made me healthier, and stronger. It remains a frustrating fact that I am very difficult to kill.
My meds make it worse. My economic situation makes it worse. The place I live makes it worse. I don’t live in the hottest place in the country (because that is death valley), but I do live in one of the most dangerous climates for people prone to heat illness. The humidity here is high. That is why I should not buy a swamp cooler. My house is overinsulated, yet my central A/C is undersized. Currently it gets intolerably cold in my house in the morning, because overnight the A/C can pull the temp down. I found a new option for cooling, and it is out of my price range. So is moving to a dryer climate. Right now it would only take between two and three thousand to get me somewhere dryer and also closer to the lake (doesn’t make sense, does it?)
So I’m in self care mode. I don’t even have the energy to hate everything. I just regret everything. Living here, buying a house here, not working harder to fight climate change. We all have our part to play in the mess this planet is in, do we not?
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I used to work for the phone company in the desert southwest, hundred ten degree summers for weeks on end, wearing jeans and long sleeve shirts. Countless times I almost passed out due to heatstroke, I am EXTREMELY sensitive to heat also. I worked alone, and often in somewhat isolated areas.
It would only be a matter of maybe an hours exertion in these conditions nowadays, and I’d drop, and I ponder it often. The sensation of one dimensional-ness that accompanied it is bizarre, as reality begins slipping away, replaced by “nothing”, just the desire to close your eyes and be comfortable and done. Your brain just starts shutting down, slowly.
Maybe one day.